Sunwashed
by Raskol
Summary: One-shot; animeverse. The storm's breaking, and Roy is helpless before the onslaught. Roy/Ed.


Title: Sunwashed  
Beta: Xinarie (sort of)  
Summary: One-shot; animeverse. Edward Elric happens to him like a whirlwind, like a tornado and a hurricane and a tempest all rolled into one, and Roy is helpless before the onslaught. Roy/Ed.  
Warning: Slash (Roy/Ed), language, tense changes multiplying like bunnies, and possibly dangerous stream of consciousness writing. Read with caution.

* * *

Edward Elric happens to him like a whirlwind, like a tornado and a hurricane and a tempest all rolled into one. Untamable power and spitting, snarling fury howling down the corridors of Roy's life, rifling through all his rooms and tearing locked doors off their hinges with the force of a cyclone, bringing all his deepest, darkest secrets to light with the tenderness of a typhoon. He's disturbing all the dust and desert sand lying heavy atop Roy's memories without a second thought or a moment's consideration. Nothing overlooked, nothing untouched. No stone overturned, no grass blade unmarred by his passing. Nothing too _sacred_ to be swept aside (not that Ed has ever believed in God), and Roy knows he should be scared by the single-minded thoroughness with which Ed is destroying him, but . . .

The sun, Roy remembers one day, watching Edward from across the desk where he's bristling and spoiling for a fight with the sunlight glinting off his eyes and his hair like fire. Roy remembers the color of the sun before the storm. He remembers the countryside when he rode out to Risembool all those years ago, everything green and peaceful and deceptively tranquil through the square panes of glass. Clear skies overhead with the sun hanging high up in deep blue, dripping heavy amber rays like honey, and a warm wind blowing through the fields of tall grass.

That was before the storm. Before the rain started coming down – first, light like cold needles, then hard like heavy sledgehammers. Before the light from the human transmutation flared up like a dying star, before the sun disappeared behind a dark cloud, and then all he could see were sullen rolling hills drowned by a sheet of water so thick he almost had to swim through it. And afterwards, sitting there beneath a hulking tower of animated armor hovering so gently over him – a cripple with only one arm and one leg, eyes shielded and downcast like the hidden sun.

And Roy remembers thinking as he stared at the boy, _No_.

It was easy, after that, to offer the boy (_anything, everything_) access to the library, to unlimited research funds and resources, to thin hopes and pipedreams. It was easy, even, to pretend there was nothing to it but professional interest and perhaps fatherly interest. An obsession, maybe, wearing him down like water wearing down stone, because all Roy truly wanted was to see the sun again, pulsing and bursting with light too intense to be contained, because seeing something – some_one_ – brought so low like that . . . it _hurt_.

So when Ed growls at him from across the room and storms up to his desk like a sudden squall, feral eyes flashing and teeth bared like he wants to tear Roy's throat out, Roy wonders why he's so disappointed, because he can _see _it. He can see all the light and buzzing energy, the sunlight pouring out of the boy, flickering behind every violent movement and insulting word. Roy's succeeded, and there it is, the sun peering out from behind the cloud, roused by the hope of a Philosopher's Stone into tearing down its wispy cage.

In the process though, it's torn apart Roy as well.

Ed says something, growls a threat maybe, and Roy clears his throat, blinks, and sees Ed standing right there, hand held out with a report locked in his fingers. He's glaring again, eyes sharp and bright, and Roy carefully avoids his gaze as he takes the report.

Words passing before his eyes like rushing trains, he's tired (so, so exhausted from fighting this), and all he can see is the sunlight dribbling onto the page, and when he glances back up minutes later, his eyes lock with Ed's, and something explodes like a supernova in the back of Roy's brain. It's all clear now – as clear as it can fucking get, and maybe Ed sees the look on his face, because Ed breaks away, not meeting Roy's eyes anymore. Instead his feet are shuffling against the carpet, soft _shush_ing sounds filling the silence, and his hands are clenching and unclenching like he doesn't know what to do with them.

Then, suddenly, he's moving and Roy barely has time to stand up before Ed's hands are caught in his lapels and pulling him down, and Roy's _this _close to Ed's face (there's a small scar on Ed's forehead, he notices absently), with the hard edge of the desk digging into his stomach and Ed's voice hissing into his mouth ("What the fuck're you doing, you shit? Stop messing with me! Don't – "), and then Ed yanks him down even further (or maybe Roy leans down) and kisses him.

Teeth and tongue and spit, and it's like breathing in sunlight, Roy thinks, giddy and drunk. Like breathing in life, if only life smelled and tasted of leather and machine oil and warmth. Ed makes a noise against his mouth, and now he's gripping Roy's shoulders like he can't let go, automail fingers digging into flesh with a bruising force, and Roy knows Ed's scared shitless. Lithe, strong body shaking against Roy's as Roy pulls him closer over the desk until Ed's scrambling on top of it and Roy can hardly tell who's who. Is this my body or yours, my breath or yours, where's the line, where's the boundary, everything blurred and indistinct, no age gaps, no ranks, nothing and everything –

"Okay?" Roy breathes against Ed's mouth when they break apart for a breath.

Ed – swallows. Licks his lips, and doesn't say anything for a few moments, and Roy gives him a look and a crooked smirk like the cracked façade of a building. And Ed stares and then buries his face into Roy's shoulder and snickers, chest jumping against Roy's. "Okay," he finally says. "Okay, yeah. That was – "

And he's kissing Roy again, and Roy feels the world open up new and clean and brimming with the promise of everything beneath him, feels his breath gutter out at the sight of the radiance pouring through the rain-washed skies, and he thinks, _Yes_.


End file.
